TONY HETHERINGTON: Finally, your £20k British Gas bill horror is over

I have been in business as a hairdresser for 20 years at the same address, employing two part-time staff.

The agreement between the landlord and myself is that electricity is included in my rent. I have now received a letter from debt collector Arvato, saying that I owe British Gas £20,038 for electricity.

I have never even received a bill before, though the meter has been read regularly. Can you help? TK.

Over-sized bill: I have now received a letter from debt collector Arvato, saying that I owe British Gas £20,038 for electricity

Tony Hetherington replies: The letter from Arvato is scary. It says: ‘Despite several reminders, your electricity account remains unpaid. If we are unable to reach an agreeable resolution then we may pass this account to our client’s field collections team to visit your property with a view to commencing disconnection activity.’

Arvato goes on to say that if you fail to make contact, British Gas may apply for a warrant of entry entitling it to enter your premises and cut off your electricity. This will add £450 to your bill.

It warns: ‘If your supply is disconnected, reconnection can take up to two weeks and may cost up to £1,800 plus VAT, dependent on the size of your meter.’

All of this threatened to put you out of business, and your staff out of work. But there were a few puzzling questions. For a start, the letter was addressed to your hairdressing business and not to you personally.

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HOW THIS IS MONEY CAN HELP

This made me wonder whether you were even a British Gas customer, so I asked Arvato to comment, but it did not reply.

British Gas was a lot more helpful. Its records show you are its customer, though they bear the name of your business, rather than your name.

Any agreement that your landlord should pay the bills is between you and him. The company insists it sent four reminders about the bill – so perhaps you simply handed these over to the landlord.

But the bottom line is that the demand for £20,038 is just plain wrong. Apparently British Gas had been using estimates for quite some time, until last November when an actual reading of your electricity meter showed significantly lower consumption than expected, taking the reading well below the earlier estimates.

As a result, British Gas assumed that the meter had gone all the way round to 99999 and had started again at zero, producing a huge bill.

A meter reader visited you and confirmed the low reading was correct. Unfortunately, British Gas failed to update its records and carried on demanding payment.

Catrin Millar, of British Gas, told me: ‘We are sorry we let Mr K down. As soon as we realised we had sent him a large bill in error, we should have put the matter right straight away.’

By the time you read this, you will have received an apology from British Gas, a hamper of goodies, and just over £350 as a gesture of goodwill. Excellent.

PPI claim left me with court threat

Ms D.P. writes: Over a year ago I had a communication from a firm called Bank Smart, advising that I was owed money over payment protection insurance on an Alliance & Leicester mortgage. I filled in a form, authorising it to claim a refund, and last June received a letter advising me it was unable to continue with the claim so no money was owed. Now I have received a letter threatening court action, saying I owe Bank Smart £165.

Bank Smart is just one of a long list of trading names used by Symmetric Systems Limited, based in Truro, Cornwall.

Manager Amy Piper told me its original letter was just a sales pitch and not an assurance that you were owed a penny. But she added: ‘Having reviewed Ms P’s account, I can see she registered two claims with us. The first was for recovery of mis-sold insurance and the second was for the recovery of unfair penalty charges.’

She said that when Alliance & Leicester confirmed you never had insurance, this claim was cancelled without charge. Your other claim remained active, but Bank Smart said you failed to reply when it asked repeatedly for details, so it billed you for work done. As you may have been confused over the two separate claims, Bank Smart has closed its file and scrapped the bill. You should hear no more about it.

WRITE TO TONY HETHERINGTON

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.

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